Attention

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Local teens will be tuning in at the library as Wicomico Public Libraries celebrates Teen Tech Week, March 8 – March 14, 2015. They join thousands of other libraries and schools across the country who are celebrating this year’s theme, “Libraries are for Making…” to raise awareness about how Wicomico Public Libraries creates a space to extend teens’ learning beyond the classroom where they can explore, create and share content.

Teen Tech Week is a national initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) aimed at teens, their parents, educators and other concerned adults. The purpose of the initiative is to ensure that teens are competent and ethical users of technology, especially the types offered through libraries. Teen Tech Week encourages teens to take advantage of the technology at libraries for education and recreation, and to recognize that librarians are qualified, trusted professionals who can help them achieve greater digital literacy.

Andrea Berstler, Executive Director, stated that, “providing a ‘space’ for teens in the Library is important. We offer activities, access to computers, and homework help so that they can succeed not only today, but so they can realize their future potential. Once they discover how to use these resources, we show teens that with an education, anything is possible.”

Teens are encouraged to celebrate Teen Tech Week. Wicomico Public Libraries hopes to attract a wide variety of teenagers and increase teen technology literacy locally by offering a series of programs including:

Fan-art Contest- teens are challenged to create an original work of art inspired by their favorite character

Master Chef Apps and Dessert Contest - teen cooks prepare their favorite appetizer or dessert and are judged by local culinary experts

Wicomico Teen Video Contest – teens show their vision by creating a 5-15 minute video which is uploaded to You Tube and judged at the Teen Tech Week Film Festival

Film Festival – Videos from the Teen Tech Week Video Contest are viewed and voted on for best film. During the Film Festival teens enjoy treats from the Master Chef Apps and Dessert Contest

Wicomico Public Libraries are located in Downtown Salisbury, the Centre at Salisbury, in Pittsville, and the Library Bookmobile. Wicomico Public Libraries offer numerous resources such as free Internet

New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told a predominantly black crowd Tuesday that police have made some of the worst parts of black history possible, including slavery.

Speaking at a Black History Month event in Queens, Mr. Bratton said that while police have played crucial role in maintaining order during civil unrest, “many of the worst parts of black history would have been impossible without police, too,” DNAinfo reported.

“Slavery, our country’s original sin, sat on a foundation codified by laws and enforced by police, by slave catchers,” he added.

A U.S. State Department official was jailed Tuesday on a charge of soliciting a minor.

Daniel Rosen was arrested at his home in Washington, D.C., about noon on Tuesday and was in custody at the D.C. jail Tuesday night, said Fairfax County, Virginia, Police Department spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell.

Rosen, 44, was arrested 'following a series of online exchanges' with a detective assigned to the Fairfax County Police Department's Child Exploitation Unit, Caldwell said.

BRUSSELS — The European Union's executive has unveiled a vast plan to boost coordination between the EU's 28 national energy markets to wean Europe off unstable Russian gas supplies and provide cheaper energy for consumers.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on Wednesday called it "undoubtedly the most ambitious energy project" since the inception of the EU over half a century ago. He believes that improving links across borders in Europe's energy grid could save businesses and consumers up to 40 billion euros ($45.4 billion) a year.

A more energy-independent Europe will also increase the EU's political options in eastern Europe.

Europe imports 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, half via pipelines through conflict-torn Ukraine, and it could to take years of investment to reduce that dependency. Ukraine and Russian energy monopoly Gazprom have been embroiled in numerous gas price wars, which have hit supplies in Europe over the past years.

Less than a week after Wal-Mart announced that it would raise wages for 500,000 employees to $9 an hour in April, off-price retailer TJXsaid in its fourth-quarter earnings report that it, too, will boost pay.

The parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods said Wednesday its full- and part-time hourly U.S. employees will earn at least $9 an hour starting in June. In 2016, all hourly U.S. workers who have been with the company for six months or more will earn at least $10 an hour.

"At TJX, we attribute our success over the last 38 years primarily to the people we have hired who have remained focused on our mission of delivering consumers amazing values," CEO Carol Meyrowitz said in the company's earnings release.

"This pay initiative is an important part of our strategies to continue attracting and retaining the best talent in order to deliver a great shopping experience for our customers, remain competitive on wages in our U.S. markets, and stay focused on our value mission."

In a scene reminiscent of the TV show "Breaking Bad," New York City investigators raided the business of one of the nation's largest processors of maraschino cherries -- only to find that his Brooklyn factory also allegedly served as a marijuana growing operation, authorities said.

Investigators returned to the factory today in the Red Hook section, a day after the owner shot and killed himself in an apparent suicide as authorities raided it. police said.

There's a good chance the cherry atop your sundae or at the bottom of your Manhattan is fromDell's Maraschino Cherries, a family business founded in 1948 that now appears to have also hosted what sources described to ABC News as a large-scale, elaborate marijuana growing operation.

A team of city and state environmental regulators, along with prosecutors from the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, had been at the company for several hours Tuesday investigating a complaint of illegal chemical dumping in the waters off Red Hook, prosecutors said.

At first owner Arthur Mondella, 57, cooperated with the search, police said. Then, as investigators discovered "flimsy shelving and a faint smell of marijuana," a source briefed on the investigation said, Mondella became increasingly vague.

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) - It can be an uncomfortable situation. A stranger approaches you when you’re stopped at a red light or while you’re walking down the street. The person asks for money. You’d like to help.

But you wonder to yourself if the money will be used to buy necessities or some sort of vice.

“So you have that kind of moral hazard of, so you’re giving a person money, but you actually could make their lives worse,” said Neel Sus from his tech company Susco Solutions.

Sus says he has always had a desire to help people but he could never be certain that cash donations would be used for necessities.

It may not surprise you that there's a lot of demand for surf shops in Hawaii, but did you know that South Dakota is all about its art galleries?

A recent collaboration between The Huffington Post and Yelp reveals what kinds of stores are the most insanely popular in each state, based on the review website's listings. It's the same idea behind our recent map showing each state's most popular type of cuisine.

To collect info for the map, Yelp delved into its online catalogue of store listings and calculated the percentage of a given type of shopping business relative to the total number of business listings in that state. Then, it compared those percentages with each type of store's representation nationwide and produced a list of the top 10 most disproportionally common stores in each of the 50 states.

The map below, made by HuffPost's Alissa Scheller, shows which type of retail shop is the most likely to appear in each state.

A new multimillion-dollar federal lawsuit alleges that UPS unlawfully shipped almost 700,000 cartons of untaxed cigarettes in New York, undercutting anti-smoking efforts and depriving the state of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

The joint lawsuit, filed Wednesday by both the state and the city of New York, says the shipping giant made nearly 80,000 illicit shipments of cigarettes from unlicensed vendors on the state's Native American reservations to locations elsewhere in the state from 2010 to 2014.

"Our lawsuit alleges that UPS blatantly disregarded New York and federal tax and public health laws, by shipping tens of millions of cheap, untaxed cigarettes to New Yorkers," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement Wednesday. "We contend that UPS cost this state millions in revenue and is helping to make illegal, low-cost cigarettes available to our young people, who are disproportionately lured to smoking by lower costs."

"To limit smoking, which remains the number one preventable public health crisis today, we must stop the flow of illegal cigarettes and enforce the law," he continued.

Uyanwah, a 24-year-old from California, won the "Guest of Honor" contest fromVisitLondon.com. The prize package included a tour of London's Science Museumwith Hawking.

While being shown around, Uyanwah asked Hawking which human shortcoming he would most like to change, and which trait he'd enhance.

Hawking chose aggression and warned that a nuclear war could end civilization and possibly the human race. We need to replace aggression with empathy, which "brings us together in a peaceful loving state,” he said.

Salisbury, MD – The Friends of Wicomico Public Library will hold its third annual Light of Literacy Awards Ceremony on Thursday April 9th, 2015. Nominations are necessary to make this event a success. Nominees help others improve their reading, information, computer, financial and other literacy skills, giving them the necessary tools to become lifelong learners. Winners will be honored at an awards breakfast at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center.

If you know someone who is lighting the way for others and has a passion for utilizing what they do to ensure others succeed please nominate them for a Light of Literacy Award. You may nominate more than one person. Nominee submissions are due by Friday, March 6th.

The political back and forth on a GOP plan to fund Homeland Security without the immigration provisions opposed by President Barack Obama has been "embarrassing," says Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund and former Virginia attorney general.

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats signed onto the plan, putting the Senate on track to pass it and stop a partial agency shutdown on Friday.

Shortly before the decision, Cuccinelli told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV the Republicans seem unable to negotiate and would rather roll over.

"You don't need to have a PhD in negotiating tactics. When you see something like that, you know you're looking at a guy who has no idea how one properly goes about negotiating anything," Cuccinelli said.

"It's embarrassing to watch when such important strategic issues are at stake. It's horrible to watch and there are reasons we all thought [House Speaker John] Boehner should be removed.

Team Barack started strong, but Team Bibi is showing it knows how to finish, as supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pick up steam against those urging a boycott of his speech next week before Congress.

About 20 House and Senate Democrats announced early on that they would not attend the March 3 speech, which is being cast as a rebuke to President Obama, but since then only a handful have joined them as pro-Netanyahu advocates counter by hinting at political consequences for the no-shows.

Christians United for Israel, for example, sent out an action alert a few weeks ago urging its members to contact their representatives in support of the Netanyahu speech. The result was a blast of more than 30,000 emails asking lawmakers not to let “partisan politics and petty excuses keep you from fulfilling the most basic of responsibilities of your office.”

Mr. Obama is refusing to meet with Mr. Netanyahu during his visit here, accusing Mr. Boehner of breaking protocol in issuing the invite. Vice President Joseph R. Biden, who as presiding officer of the Senate would normally sit on the dais behind the prime minister, has scheduled a trip and won’t be in attendance.

But only 23 of the House’s 188 Democrats, two of the Senate’s 44 Democrats and one independent have said they will skip the March 3 speech, according to an online “whip list” maintained by The Hill.

“Here’s the difference: Obama doesn’t have to run for re-election again. A lot of these guys do,” Mr. Brog said. “So if they’re doubling down with the White House on what is increasingly proving to be a naive approach to this evil, they could pay with their jobs.” Here is more

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller called Tuesday for an end to Maryland's practice of allowing challengers to run against appointed Circuit Court judges, saying a system that forces judges to raise money for political campaigns is "very unseemly."

Miller endorsed a constitutional amendment that would require newly appointed Circuit Court judges to run to keep their seats in so-called "retention" elections, in which voters would either say yes or no to their remaining on the bench. That is the system the state uses for appointments to its appellate courts.

The Circuit Courts are Maryland's principal trial courts for serious criminal and civil cases. The judges are now appointed by the governor but must run to stay on the bench for a 15-year term in the next possible election. Traditionally, new judges run in both party primaries. Usually they win the nominations of both parties, but in some cases a challenger wins one party primary to set up a general election contest.

Taxpayers are already telling their accountants they plan to stiff the IRS on the Obamacare tax, saying they figure the chances the agency comes after them for a few hundred bucks are pretty slim, and it makes sense to take the risk.

Still other taxpayers are recoiling when they find out they owe far more than the $95 minimum penalty for not having insurance in 2014, said Christopher Wittich, an accountant in Minnesota.

Taxpayers are facing the first round of penalties under Obamacare’s “individual mandate,” which requires most Americans to prove they have health insurance coverage or else pay the tax that the Supreme Court ruled made the law constitutional.

But Indiana accountant Scott Frick said one of his clients, told he would have to fork over $850 for going without insurance last year, thought about the IRS and decided not to pay, just to “see what happens.”

The episodes raise questions for the revenue agency, which is trying to figure out just how far it’s prepared to go to collect the Obamacare tax — and if future administrations will enforce it at all.

Under the 2010 law the IRS cannot pursue criminal penalties or put liens on the property of people who ignore the Affordable Care Act’s mandate. More

Good morning. I enjoy reading your blog... thank you for keeping the community informed.

I thought I'd pass along another example of our great BOE's waste of taxpayer's money. In light of our financial situation it is beyond me how money is continually put toward unnecessarily extravagant items. The latest that has come to my attention is a fully funded trip to Florida for 2 BOE employees to attend a conference regarding the "summer program". They left 2/17, returned 2/22 or 2/23. Flights, hotels, meals paid for. How much could this have cost the taxpayers of Wicomico County? Not to mention the same two employees have been on other "conferences" together in the past which required flights/mileage/hotels/meals... Is traveling up and down the east coast really necessary? They also frequent local "establishments" during the summer months under the guise of "meeting to write curriculum", no doubt this is written off as an "expense".

She was Hawaii's golden girl after winning a seat in Congress with support from top liberal groups, but now that Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been critical of President Obama, her political reputation in the bluest of blue states is taking a hit.

That isn’t stopping the twice-deployed 33-year-old Army veteran from continuing to challenge the president, her home state's favorite son, over his refusal to identify terror groups like the Islamic State as driven by "radical Islam.”

“Every soldier knows this simple fact: If you don't know your enemy, you will not be able to defeat him,” Gabbard told FoxNews.com. “Our leaders must clearly identify the enemy as Islamist extremists, understand the ideology that is motivating them and attracting new recruits, and focus on defeating that enemy both militarily and ideologically.”

Gabbard has been hitting this message for weeks now, putting her at odds with many in her party who toe the line that the Islamic State should not be associated with Islam.

Iowa Democrats don’t seem to be all that enamored with Martin O’Malley, according to a new poll released Thursday.

Among 619 likely caucus-goers surveyed by Quinnipiac University, zero percent responded that they would support the former governor of Maryland in 2016. And only 3 percent say he would be their second choice.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said Friday that the United States must protect its interests while promoting stability abroad and called for an end of foreign aid to “haters of America.”

“We must protect ourselves from jihadists without losing who we are as a people in the process,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside of Washington, D.C. “We must think before we act. We should promote stability — not chaos.”

As Mr. Paul does frequently, he knocked “Hillary’s War” in Libya, a reference to former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the move to arm rebels in Syria’s civil war.

“At home, conservatives understand that government is the problem, not the solution,” he said. “As conservatives, we should not succumb to the notion that a government inept at home will somehow become successful abroad.”

I am reminded of the scene from some television comedy I once saw. After many unsuccessful contrivances, an unfaithful wife, determined to eliminate her arrogantly unsuspecting husband, finally manages to deliver what appears to be a fatal blow.

Wising up at last, his eyes wide with surprise and shock, her husband gasps, “Does this mean you don’t love me anymore?”

Enter Rudy Giuliani, supposedly speaking for America’s wounded feelings, letting us know that Obama doesn’t love America. Yet it says something deeply uncomplimentary about America’s leadership during this era of purposely induced decline that a well-known star in the GOP’s firmament has taken this long to get less than halfway to the truth about Obama.

I say halfway because, like the unfaithful spouse in the slapstick comedy, Obama has approached the task of bringing American down with studied ingenuity. Nothing that contributed to our success has escaped his destructive efforts. Refusing seriously to address the issue of his eligibility for office, he quietly sneered at the authority of the Constitution’s words. Seeking to confer voting privileges on the D.C. delegate in Congress, (which the Constitution explicitly withholds), he waved off another constitutional provision. Seeking to usurp Congress’ oversight of the decennial Census, he sought to poison the electoral root of its independent representation of the people.

In the years since then, his repeated tyrannies and usurpations have induced every symptom of pious outrage from GOP leaders, but little effective resistance. Even now, they are doing their best to make sure Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders on illegal immigration move forward unhindered. They are also working to pass a new international trade agreement that will increase his power to negotiate and implement policies that sell out America’s economic potential.

‘No One Will The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced on Thursday night that hundreds of former IRS official Lois Lerner’s previously “lost” backup tapes have been recovered, which could result in the recovery of a new trove of her emails.

IRS Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus told Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Thursday that it took investigators just two weeks to recover 424 backup tapes that were previously said to be unretrievable.

“To date, we have found 32,744 unique emails that were backed up from Lois Lerner’s email box. We are in the process of comparing these emails to what the IRS has already produced to Congress to determine if we did in fact recover any new emails,” Camus said, according to the Washington Times.

In one of the new emails, Lerner apparently wrote, “No one will ever believe that both your hard drive and mine crashed within a week of each other.”

President Obama spent days at a White House summit emphasizing the U.S. is not at war with Islam, that he wants to protect the Muslim population from being blamed for the acts of radical Muslims across the Mideast and that violence is done in the name of all religions, not just Islam.

But a number of Middle East experts contend it’s clear that the motivation of the people who use the tactics of beheading, crucifixion, burning and slaughter to instill terror and take over territory in the name of Allah is religious.

Spokesman David Curry of Open Doors USA, which has worked for decades in the Middle East, said all of the administrations policy statements and evaluations of the conflict seem to be “leaving out the religious content.”

“It is religious,” he told WND. “These people have a religious motivation. … They are attacking Christians. Their goal is to eliminate Christianity and faith in their caliphate and beyond, and that’s what they’re attempting to do.”

(BROOKLANDVILLE, MD) – Concerned drivers on I-695 in Baltimore County this afternoon may have helped avert a tragedy when they alerted State Police to a commercial bus operating erratically, which led to the arrest of the driver for DUI.

The driver is identified as Pamelia L. Willie, 52, of Randallstown, Md. Willie is charged with 23 traffic violations. They include driving under the influence, operator of a commercial vehicle in possession of alcohol, consuming alcohol in the passenger area of a vehicle, driving a commercial vehicle without an appropriate medical certificate, negligent and reckless driving, and driving off the highway.

At about noon today, the Maryland State Police Golden Ring Barrack received numerous calls from motorists reporting an orange school bus on the outer loop of I-695 that was swerving and running cars off the roadway. Troopers from the barrack and the State Police Motor Unit spotted the bus approaching on the outer loop at Falls Road and observed it swerving onto the shoulder multiple times. Troopers stopped traffic on the beltway while they safely stopped the bus on the left shoulder of the outer loop. Troopers know of no vehicles that were struck while the driver was on the beltway.

Troopers found Willie was the driver and only occupant on the bus. They immediately observed indications the driver was under the influence of alcohol. Further investigation led to her arrest for DUI. Troopers found four empty, full and partially full containers of beer and liquor on the bus.

Further investigation indicated the driver was on her way to a private school in Montgomery County to pick up students for a field trip to Washington, D.C. It is not known where she was driving from. The bus was registered to Mr. Tim’s Bus Rides, of Owings Mills, Md. The owner responded to the scene and took custody of the bus.

Willie was taken to the Golden Ring Barrack where she was processed and provided the traffic citations. She had a valid commercial vehicle driver’s license. She was released later to a sober driver. The Maryland State Police does not release information prior to trial concerning any DUI tests administered or the results of those tests.

For all the tales you’ve heard about Hillary and Bubba, they’re actually simple folks with simple tastes. All they want is money.

Bubba likes the ladies, too, though he never pays much attention to them with their clothes on. The years cool ardor and blight opportunity, and even if good ol’ boy charm and boudoir magic have survived he may not be up for another championship season. But money, unlike sex, knows no season.

If the past is prologue, we shouldn’t be surprised by the revelations emerging in the newspapers. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Clinton Foundation has dropped its ban, self-imposed, on collecting money from foreign governments and is taking on boodle at an accelerating pace. The Journal says this raises “ethical questions” for skeptical folk as Hillary gets seriously to work assembling a presidential campaign.

Back home in Little Rock, where he was governor for almost forever (only Orval Faubus occupied the office longer), there were none of the usual gubernatorial scandals. He rarely pursued the petty temptations a governor is heir to, at least not with the passion of some predecessors. Mike Huckabee once described Arkansas as “a banana republic.” One former governor had a little insurance business and wrote fire and theft policies, with handsome premiums, on every concrete and steel bridge in the highway system.

But Hillary loves money just for being there. “She was the usual Yankee wife,” remembers someone who knew them in the Arkansas years. “She thrived on collecting dimes and nickels.” Her taste for dollars, first in the thousands and then the millions and now the billions, waxed with the passage of the years and the size of the opportunities.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has distinguished himself among a large field of potential 2016 presidential contenders for having achieved widespread support across a broad range of Republican voters, National Journal reported.

The Journal noted a Quinnipiac poll out this week that gave Walker a 25 percent lead among likely participants in the Iowa Republican caucus, twice as much as the second-place finisher, with consistent support across almost all of the party's religious, class and ideological factions.

The Journal noted that no Republican presidential candidate has demonstrated that level of broad appeal since George W. Bush in 2000.

"The real opportunity for the party is if someone like a Scott Walker can unite this populist wing with the more establishment wing. I think that's a stronger general election candidate than just going down the establishment side [for a nominee] with a lack of energy on the populist wing," John Weaver, chief strategist for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, told the Journal.

"He has the opportunity to do so — but he doesn't have any definition yet."

The Journal pointed out that in the Quinnipiac poll, Walker leads with both evangelical voters, who make up a substantial voting bloc, as well as non-evangelical voters, by double digits, in sharp contrast with every other rival.

Worcester Treasurer Phil Thompson was not expecting applause after his presentation of the fiscal 2015-2017 county revenue report last Thursday. Good thing, too, because his presentation painted a less-than-rosy picture.

Fiscal 2015, for instance, had general fund expenditures of $178 million. To cover that bill, the county had to take $6.4 million from a rainy day fund created during the real estate boom to cover shortages.

The projected 2016 budget, however, would need to take the remaining $10.5 million in that fund, known formally as the budget stabilization fund, to get close to last year’s expenditures, at $177.8 million, or about $500,000 less.

A D.C. judge has dismissed a lawsuit that claimed Congress overstepped its bounds when it allowed lawmakers and staff to enroll in an Obamacare exchange set up for small employers in the nation’s capital.

In 2010 Congress decided that lawmakers and staff who want insurance from their federal jobs should enter the exchanges it set up for regular Americans under the Affordable Care Act.

The administration issued regulations in 2013 that designated the D.C. small business exchange, or “SHOP,” as the go-to exchange for congressional lawmakers and staff who wanted to retain a federal employer subsidy that covers about three-quarters of their premiums.

This fight has been brewing since the end of last year, when the so-called “Cromnibus” bill was passed by Congress and sent to the White House.

Conservatives screamed loudly about the “Cromnibus” bill. It funded the government through September 2015, with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security. Conservatives thought this was a really bad idea since the American people had just given the Republicans control of the Senate and conservatives thought the will of the people should be honored. Instead of funding the government for the entire year, conservatives thought the government should just be funded for a couple of months and let the new Republican majority decide spending instead of outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Even though Mr. McConnell was not the majority leader, he led the fight in the Senate to get Republicans onboard with the “Cromnibus.”

For the last few weeks, the battle has been fought over the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. The Republicans in the House passed an appropriations bill that blocked funding for President Obama’s executive amnesty program. Senate Democrats filibustered the bill.

Leader McConnell had promised the GOP would block any funding of Mr. Obama’s executive amnesty. Faced with the potential shut down of the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. McConnell has decided he would rather surrender than fight.

Thursday's vote by a bitterly divided Federal Communications Commission that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility is the culmination of a decade-long battle by the Left. Using money from George Soros and liberal foundations that totaled at least $196 million, radical activists finally succeeded in ramming through “net neutrality,” or the idea that all data should be transmitted equally over the Internet.

The final push involved unprecedented political pressure exerted by the Obama White House on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, head of an ostensibly independent regulatory body.

“Net neutrality’s goal is to empower the federal government to ration and apportion Internet bandwidth as it sees fit, and to thereby control the Internet’s content,” says Phil Kerpen, an anti-net-neutrality activist from the group American Commitment.

The courts have previously ruled the FCC’s efforts to impose “net neutrality” out of bounds, so the battle isn’t over. But for now, the FCC has granted itself enormous power to micromanage the largely unrestrained Internet.

Will Marshall, head of the Progressive Policy Institute (which was once a favorite think tank of Clinton Democrats), issued a statement that net neutrality “endorses a backward-looking policy that would apply the brakes to the most dynamic sector of America’s economy.”

But such voices have been drowned out by left-wing activists who want to manage the Internet to achieve their political objectives. The most influential of these congregate around the deceptively named Free Press, a liberal lobby co-founded in 2002 by Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor.

His goals have always been clear. “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies,” he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. “But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.” Earlier in 2000, he told the Marxist magazine Monthly Review: “Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.”

In essence, what McChesney and his followers want is an Unfree Press — a media world that promotes their values.

A small, Christian college in South Carolina said on Friday it had not banned gay students or homosexuality from its campus under its controversial new "Statement on Human Sexuality," which calls the practice sinful.

Erskine College has received scrutiny for its board of trustees' decision last week, characterized by some media outlets as a ban on homosexuality. It comes as many religious organizations seek to respond to the national debate over gay rights and same-sex marriage.

The college, affiliated with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, held that sexual intimacy is only appropriate between a man and woman who are married.

"We believe the Bible teaches that all sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage is sinful," said the statement adopted by the college in Due West, South Carolina.

Two gay volleyball players at Erskine had been profiled last year on Outsports.com, which wrote a follow-up piece on the statement that was picked up by national media outlets.

The statement was not adopted in response to specific students and was not intended as a ban, said Erskine spokesman Cliff Smith.

"Because this is an issue of debate, both within and without religious communities, it gives us a point of reference to have a conversation," he said.

The attention prompted Erskine to post a clarification on its website Friday that said it does not discriminate.

"This statement describes a position. It does not prescribe a policy and does not 'ban' any individual or class of individuals from attending Erskine. No students have been asked to leave Erskine based on this statement," the college said. More here

The liberal hold on Hollywood is loosening. A persistent conservative mindset is emerging in the entertainment industry, replacing glitter with some red, white and blue as studios discover that Americans like America, and they pine for fare that uplifts the nation.

Money talks. Consider that “American Sniper” has made $428 million at the box office since it opened six weeks ago, largely credited to a devoted heartland audience.

A new breed of stars has claimed some turf. Plainspoken “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson was candid about his belief in traditional values and stood firm in the aftermath, despite a media firestorm. On Friday he’ll receive the “Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award,” at the Conservative Political Action Conference, now underway near the nation’s capital. He’s still standing by his convictions.

“Phil and his family have been that breath of fresh air Hollywood desperately needed,” said Stephen Bannon, chairman of the Breitbart News Network. “They are taking their faith and conservative politics mainstream. Phil has the guts to do and say what most politicians in Washington won’t. You must adhere to your conservative beliefs, all of them, and never surrender or compromise them for anyone.” More here

Between Jan. 29 and Feb. 19, border patrol agents said they arrested several Mexican nationals with extensive criminal records including convictions for sexual abuse, battery with serious injury, domestic violence and child abuse.

Each individual received a sentence of between 30 days to five years of incarceration.

Agents from Casa Grande, Ajo, Tucson, and Nogales were involved in these arrests.

"These are the normal type of people we encounter out in the field, not everybody that comes in is a criminal or has a criminal history but we don't know that when we encounter them," said Border Patrol Agent George Trevino with the Public Affairs Office.

Trevino said every illegal immigrant they encountered was entered into a national database that checked their record in the United States and Mexico.

Tensions between Republicans and Democrats on funding for the Department of Homeland Security boiled over Thursday night.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., were having a bit of a tiff over the scheduling of Friday's votes late Thursday night — and Hoyer wanted McCarthy to know his displeasure.

After Hoyer criticized Republicans for leaving Homeland Security "twisting in the wind" — GOP members present responded with groans — McCarthy reclaimed his time on the floor from Hoyer immediately and said the voting schedule Friday would proceed as planned... More

When we go to the store today we take for granted that one of the staples they will always have is milk. There have been many changes in the last 100 years in the manner we acquire milk. Now it is homogenized, pasteurized and even ultra-pasteurized, the latter having a longer shelf life. There is whole milk, 2%, 1% and low fat. Anything less than whole milk seems like water to me, but that’s just my opinion.

There were no listed dairies in Salisbury before 1900 and only three by 1907. They were the Oak Lawn Dairy Co. which was owned by a Mr. Case and a Mr. Baysinger, Byrd’s Homestead Dairy, Harvey Morris, proprietor, and Grant Sexton whose home place became the Children’s Home out on old Ocean City Road (pictured in the postcard above). There is no mention of any dairy in either the 1916 or 1921 City Directories but in 1934 there were two listings under “dairy products”. They were the Purity Creamery on S. Division St and Southern Dairies, Fred Battle, mgr., which advertised they served the Salisbury-Ocean City area with both milk and ice cream. The 1940 Directory gives additional information on Purity Creamery in that H.A. Torry was the manager. Fred Battle still ran the Southern Dairies milk and ice cream operation. Two new dairies emerged at this time – City Dairy (Koontz), which carried a more extensive line to include chocolate milk, buttermilk, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, along with pasteurized milk and cream, and the Homestead Dairy out on Quantico Rd. (now Nanticoke Rd.) which advertised Golden Guernsey Milk.

For the milk bottle collector, there are no fewer than 25 different local bottles to collect. The rarest ones are Cedarhurst, Hickory Ridge, Archie Humphreys, Lakeview, Maple Shade, Pleasant View, Riverview, A. E. Shockley, Springfield and Sunnyside. Each of these in top shape could bring upwards of $200 so keep a lookout. The bottles of Koontz, City Dairy and Homestead are readily available and make a nice collectible. Some of the other dairies were Brown, Cherry Hill, Eastside, Fairview, Hillside, Maple Leaf, Peninsula Ice Cream Company, Herman Pryor, J. L. Smith, Purity Creamery, Sunayr and Walnut Lane.

Milk bottles come in all sizes from quarts right on down to a gill, which is about a serving in a cup of coffee or tea. Years ago, restaurants would serve coffee or tea with cubes of sugar in a bowl and a gill of milk or cream alongside.

How many remember home delivery when your mom would leave the empties out front with a note in one of the bottles with her order? I vividly remember my mom having to scrape the cream off the top to get to the milk. I always thought that was disgusting and carefully avoided any little piece of the cream. Now I crave sour cream on a nice baked potato. Maybe it’s not the same, or maybe my taste buds have changed over time. In any event, home delivery is a thing of the past. Those were the days.

The impact of oil's price drop depends on how much a local government relies on the oil industry for revenue and jobs.

The dramatic drop in oil prices will be a drag on some local government’s health but overall, experts say the price drop will dump a welcome infusion of cash into local government coffers.

During the last six months of 2014, oil prices fell by some 44 percent while the average gasoline price fell by 30 percent in the U.S. That means that for local governments that depend on the oil industry, growth will slow to nearly a standstill.

Not all local governments in the major oil-producing states -- Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico and Oklahoma -- will be affected negatively, however. It depends on how much of the locality’s revenues are related to the industry. Oil extraction is expected to continue so the local economy will still grow, but new drilling should slow in 2015. That means a related slowdown in employment (layoffs have already begun in these states), hotels and restaurants, retail and construction and other related businesses. An analysis by Fitch Ratings last month noted that cities will feel the impact in reduced sales tax receipts, building permits and other economically sensitive revenues.

North Carolina is trying to recruit girls for careers in engineering not only to fill anticipated vacancies but also because hiring more women could make the roads safer.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation (DOT) is using newspapers, masking tape and a competitive spirit to get more young women interested in engineering.

The agency is hosting a series of events where girls in high school and junior high can meet and work with the department's women engineers. Each engineer is assigned a table of students and tasked with constructing the tallest building they can with just five sheets of newspaper and five pieces of masking tape. The teams are judged, not just on how tall their buildings are, but how durable they are too. For instance, can they survive earthquakes (the table being rocked beneath them) and high winds (an electric fan set beside them)?

It is one of many activities at the gatherings, which also include presentations on what engineers do. Panelists discuss why they chose engineering, what is required academically to get into the field and what types of jobs are available. North Carolina is hosting four such events over a month, with roughly 200 students expected to participate. "All of the girls there were awestruck [by the presentations]," said Gail Herring, who coordinates the programs for the North Carolina DOT. "The purpose is to encourage more women to go into engineering, because the number of jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) are going to double in the near future. We need more women and minorities to consider this opportunity."

For the North Carolina DOT, getting girls excited about engineering is important for its future. Like many transportation agencies -- andpublic agencies in general -- the department faces a future where job openings could far outnumber qualified applicants. Boosting interest among women, who are vastly underrepresented in the transportation field, is one way to address that issue. And, experts say, increasing the number of women in the workforce could improve the quality of transportation systems, too.

Amount Washington, D.C., will spend at this year's South by Southwest -- a film, technology and music festival in Austin, Texas -- which is almost three times what the city spent to attend the event in 2014.

Salisbury, MD – Jesse Garron’s Tribute to Elvis dinner and show will be held Saturday, March 28 at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center. This Vegas-style rendition is a consistent fan favorite that has earned a reputation for professionalism as well as countless standing ovations. Acclaimed as the “Closest Thing to the King,” Garron has been performing his Tribute since 1998. This act is the most authentic recreation of an Elvis concert available in today’s market.

Jesse Garron’s Tribute to Elvis has shared the bill with acts such as Little Big Town, Franki Valli, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, The Commodores and Wayne Newton in venues ranging from New York’s Westbury Music Fair and Louisiana’s Isle of Capri Casino to Delaware Park and Arizona’s Coolidge Days.

Tickets are available for purchase at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center Box Office (M-F 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.) for $40 a person. Group rates are available for parties of 8 or more. Doors open for the Elvis-themed dinner service at 5 p.m. and dinner ends at 6:45 p.m. The show will start at 7 p.m. and conclude at 8:45 p.m. For more information and to purchase tickets please visitwww.WicomicoCivicCenter.org.

A Florida city’s code-enforcement division, which was subject in 2013 to a scathing audit for falsifying inspections, employing unqualified inspectors and failing to clean up nuisance properties, has now decided to go after churches.

The City of Lake Worth, in Palm Beach County, has taken the position all churches are required to obtain a “business license” to conduct worship services. It is using city employees to covertly attend services and acquire evidence, including video, “for future court presentation.”

City-code enforcement officer, Gerard A. Coscia – wearing a hoodie – was sent to the Common Ground Church on Feb. 9 to clandestinely film the worship service, reported the Examiner.

The following Sunday, Coscia returned to the church, which meets in the Coffee Grounds Coffee Bar, handed his business card to pastor Mike Olive and told him, “This Sunday is your last Sunday.”

Friday, February 27, 2015

The IRS’s inspector general confirmed Thursday it is conducting a criminal investigation into how Lois G. Lerner’s emails disappeared, saying it took only two weeks for investigators to find hundreds of tapes the agency’s chief had told Congress were irretrievably destroyed.

Investigators have already scoured 744 backup tapes and gleaned 32,774 unique emails, but just two weeks ago they found an additional 424 tapes that could contain even more Lerner emails, Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus told the House Oversight Committee in a rare late-night hearing meant to look into the status of the investigation.

The IRS’s inspector general confirmed Thursday it is conducting a criminal investigation into how Lois G. Lerner’s emails disappeared, saying it took only two weeks for investigators to find hundreds of tapes the agency’s chief had told Congress were irretrievably destroyed.

Investigators have already scoured 744 backup tapes and gleaned 32,774 unique emails, but just two weeks ago they found an additional 424 tapes that could contain even more Lerner emails, Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus told the House Oversight Committee in a rare late-night hearing meant to look into the status of the investigation.

“Oh really? We’ll see about that, won’t we,” Mr. Connolly replied, saying that he questioned whether Mr. George could be trusted if he’s refusing to provide documents, yet is in charge of an investigation into whether the IRS stonewalled document requests.

The hearing was the latest chapter in the complex investigation into the IRS’s targeting of tea party groups for special scrutiny.

Several congressional committees are still probing the matter, and both the inspector general and the Justice Department are conducting criminal investigations.

In a 2013 report, the inspector general said the IRS had improperly targeted conservative and tea party groups’ applications for nonprofit status, asking repeated intrusive questions and delaying their applications well beyond a reasonable time. Some of those groups are still waiting, with their applications now pending for years.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican and Oversight Committee chairman, said the ongoing investigations undercut President Obama’s assertion last year that there was no evidence of corruption in the IRS’s targeting.

“I have no idea how the president came to such a definitive conclusion without all the facts,” he said.

The IRS belatedly told Congress it may have lost some of Ms. Lerner’s emails after her computer crashed, and asserted that the backup tapes didn’t exist.